No Wonder!

We are just finishing up our first "year" (school year, that is) in Bogota, and this just came out today.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/24532-bogota-is-53rd-mot-expensive-city-in-the-world.html

Bogota is the 53rd most expensive city in the world for ex-pats and 5th in South America.  Now I really can't complain...but living in a desirable city comes at a price.  Here are some of the conveniences we have enjoyed since moving here...

• Beautiful parks to stroll through on the weekend
• Ordering-in things like sushi, pad-thai, ice, beer, anything from the grocery story you want, a doctor, your prescription, and of course, pizza
•  An abundance of museums and restaurants
• Great local boutiques as well as recognizable brand name stores (when you need them)
• Inexpensive busses and taxis
• Great neighborhoods to stroll through from modern and new to the neighborhoods where "Bogota was born" where the buildings, cobblestone streets and architecture tell a story of long ago
• Great little towns to getaway to on the weekends

La Candelaria

              La Candelaria and Botero Museum




                                                                                                                                         

Near Lake Guatavita

But there are some things that we just can't seem to wrap our heads around...

•  a used car (that is pretty expensive) when the pica y placa restrictions mean that you can't drive your can 2 days a week (and it looks like it will be changing to 3 days a week) to counteract the terrible traffic
• The cost of eating out in the fancy restaurants (although we are finding lots of local joints in out neck of the woods) 
• The cost of our utilities
• Travel within the country by airplane

But these things that are less desirable are things that we can pass at this time in our life (well, I won't pass on utilities, but I just have to bite the bullet and pay them).  We really like it here and we'll continue to figure this city out and make it our home, for now.  It feels like this is a great time to be in Bogota and Colombia in general.  And the things we love are being outdoors, checking out and learning about Colombian culture and exploring the small towns and places off the beaten path.

Brewing up a Birthday Party

We celebrated Dempsey's 8th birthday last week.  Rice Krispies were requested for the school b-day celebration.  In the afternoon we headed to "Bungalow", the (only?) pee-wee golf course in the city.  We played a round, ordered wings, chicken fingers and nachos and D had a friend spend the night for a sleep over.  Woke up in the morning and made challah french toast.  Demspey said it was the best b-day ever.  smile

With all the beer brewing that's been going on around here, the kids were starting to protest.   "When can we make root beer?!"  So Eric ordered some ginger beer extract and he and the kids made root beer last weekend.  After getting the ingredients heated and mixed, there were bottles to wash...

     Then bottles to be filled...
 

 Linnea taking a nip o' the root beer

 The last of it gets put in a glass for a tasting.  It's not carbonated yet, but still tasty!

One week later, we cracked open a bottle and... bubbles!  Good, ol' fashioned root beer!

Mc Mariachis

We love these guys.  We've driven by these well-dressed gentlemen countless times on Bulevar Morazan as they wait for a gig.  I assume that they are hoping to get hired to play a party rather than serenade the patrons at Mc Donalds.    Anyway, we passed by one weekend night and we had a camera in the car.  We stopped, chatted them up, and asked to take a picture.  They obliged and we gave them a tip for their time.

Zip Line Reviews

Recently, we toyed with the idea of quitting our jobs and becoming zip line raters.  We got a good start into our new venture over the winter break on Roatan and in Pico Bonito.   The kids seemed to like the hands free-style zips where acrobatica and shenanagins were normal fare.  The adults preferred the faster, higher, canopy style zips where braking was necessary...

Zipping over Rio Cangrejal.  Notice the jumbo-sized glove he's wearing.  

 This was his break and he wasn't too keen on it.

One thing that was really cool about our zipping near the Cangrejal River was that we stopped 

by our guide's home and talapia farm.  Here we're all munching on sugar cane, but behind us is 

one of four ponds where he raises talapia.

Above the pond was a tree laced with oropendola nests.  The oropendola is a bird that makes its nest out of grass and soft sticks that is gracefully woven and hangs from the branches of a tree.  To be more specific, the male birds make the nests.  These nests can be used over and over for generations.  Seeing Wilmar's farm, the oropendola nests, and this crazy, ominous bird...

...made the zip line near Rio Cangrejal a big thumbs up for the adults.

However, the kids preferred the zip line near West End on Roatan.  Unfortunatley, many of our action shots from that day are currently unaccounted for.  But here's a look at all the fun we had BEFORE even getting on the cables...

Equipment check for the under-50-pound rider.

Getting to the zipper.

The critics.  

Sorry that we don't have any footage of our aerobatics and shenanigans.  Upside down, superman-style and tandem-craziness were all allowed.  Hopefully those pictures will show up someday.  You'll just have to take our word for it that it was great for the 7 and under crowd - but also a lot of fun for the 30+ crowd...

Good Bye 2010

We're setting off fireworks off the balcony and chilling the champagne.  

This guy is "father old year" or something like that.  Dozens of these dummies lined C.A. 5 (the main highway running north to south) on New Year's Eve as we drove from La Ceiba back to the capital.   This guy and many others represent saying good bye to the previous year and saying hello to the new year.  I think some of these dummies even meet a fiery end as they are set on fire at the stroke of midnight...

Here's to a great new year... hope 2011 is a sweet one.


¡Feliz Año!

Kate Wolf Music Festival and Other Happenings in Northern California

                                                                                                                        We're heading off to the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival in a couple of days.  I grew up listening to my parents play her songs on the record player while the late afternoon sun would filter through the wooden shutters of our west-facing windows.  The sunlight would hit the dark green shag carpet and the tiny bits of dust flying around in the air would be transformed into glinting bits of gold.  The festival started in 1996 to commemorate the life of a singer/song writer who died of Leukemia in 1986.  Some of the first songs that I learned to play on the guitar were "Give Yourself to Love" and "Across the Great Divide".  I'll learn "Green Eyes" someday, but it's always been a bit melancholic for me and I haven't made the space to learn it yet.

The line-up at this year's festival is amazing.  We're looking forward to hearing/seeing The Waifs, Hot Buttered Rum,  David Grisman, Ani Di Franco, Po' Girl, Greg Brown, Poor Man's Whisky, Little Feat and a whole bunch of other great musicians playing under the magical oak trees near Laytonville.  Of course, there is also Kidlandia for the kids and lots o' good food and drink for the adults.  Ben and Jerry's ice cream bars, too.  But they always melt too quickly in the heat, and they're poorly frozen to begin with...

I think this will be our 4th or 5th year going, the first being in oh-three when D was just 6 months old.  In between music performances, we'll swim in the river, hang out at camp with friends and catch up with the great northern California vibe that we miss so much.

E took the van up to the festival today to start working for our tickets.  He's worked the back-stage kitchen for several years now, earning a free ticket for his work.  I am supposing that the van is now parked under a shady shelter and he is busy setting up the portable kitchen or cooking some delicious concoction and meeting interesting people.  He met Pepe Lobo, for God's sake.  If you can meet the president of Honduras, you're bound to meet anyone.  So, I will travel north tomorrow with kids and my parents in their camper and we'll camp somewhere along the way.  Then we will go to the festival Friday morning.

So what's been going on in Sebastopol?  Meeting up with friends, seeing great live music right downtown, riding our bikes to swim lessons, to My Friend Joe's, and to Farmer's Market.  Last week at Farmer's Market we had the most delicious huevos rancheros.  While we were eating our meal, met up with Danielle, who grows the greens that the whole meal was bedded on.  Gotta love Sebastopol and its locavore priorities.

Selena and I went to San Francisco yesterday, visiting the de Young Museum to see the Impressionist exhibition.  We ate at a great pan-asian restaurant, walked through great neighborhoods while I froze my ass off in the typical breezy, foggy SF summer night.  Despite the cold, I was struck by the heart-breaking beauty of the fog, the ocean and the romance of the city.  We were able to sleep-in in our cute, cheap, windowless North Beach hotel room this morning until 10:00 where we then walked out our hotel, down an alley, and around a corner to "Pat's" for breakfast.

Chiminike!

I still don't know what the word means, but when we went there, we sure had fun!  We had heard that the museum was fun and modern, but we were amazed by how great it was!  We knew about Chiminike long before we moved here.  The superintendent who interviewed us used it (I think) as a selling point to get us to move here with our kids.  "Tegucigalpa even has a children's museum!" she said enthusiastically.

So why has it taken us almost 10 months to go there?!  I don't know. They had tractors we could drive, a tv studio where Linnea gave her first newscast, a children's grocery story that had everything from sushi to batteries to Big Sexy shampoo.  We played with a wind machine, got sneezed out by a giant nose, played in a trippy light/projection room where our psychedelic image was projected on a wall, operated on a person, "Operation!" style where the buzzer sounds if your forceps hit the edge of the person.  We played in the water room where we could divert the water and cause floods on a seaside town, we created energy by peddling a bike.  We even went in "La Casita de Equilibrio".  The view was not quite as dazzling as the Discovery Museum in Sausalito with the GG bridge and the San Francisco skyline in the background.  But the view was pretty good!  We had a great time.

Things We Love About Honduras

We are loving some things about living here.  Some of them we have just discovered.  Some of them are things that we have noticed all along, but we are just beginning to appreciate them.

This is the feel good.  Our grocery bags are 100% biodegradable.  If you've seen all the plastic garbage bags that are a normal part of the "ecosystem" here, you would know why this is so exciting.

Last night we went to a Jazz Festival.  Great music at a great outdoor venue.  We sure do miss seeing/hearing live music!  Gotta love it, it only cost $3 to get in!

Caramel made with goat's milk.  Mmmmmm... super tasty in my latte.

Monkey Licker (pretty much goes without saying why we like this!)

A herd of horses (there were about 6 or 7 of them) on the side of the road.

It's hard to see these little beautiful flowers because they're covered in dust.  This is at the side entrance of another bilingual school just outside the city.  We've seen this climbing vine growing in Sebastopol, and now we've spotted it here, decorating the chain link and concertina wire.  Gotta love the contrasts of nature and security.

We saved the best for last.  The thing we love most about living on Honduras is that our kids have discovered that their greatest playmate is each other.  They can play and play for hours making forts, playing with Legos and Playmobiles, Dempsey reads to Linnea, drawing and painting.  Yes, there is of course, fighting.  But that's all a part of being siblings, right?